John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Death of a Less-Than-Loved One, Hopes and Dreams

In this tenth installment of the Tributes.com Grief Recovery Webinar Series, Russell Friedman, the co-creator of The Grief Recovery Method, gives helpful guidance for grieving people who are dealing with the death of a "less than loved one".

When preparing the Revised Edition of The Grief Recovery Handbook, our editor questioned our use of the phrase "less than loved one". She was stuck on the simple phrase, "When a loved one dies", and had never considered the dimension of grief someone might experience when someone who should have been a loved one - but wasn't - dies.

In our 35 years of helping grieving people, a substantial percentage of them were confused by the grief they felt when someone who had mistreated them died. That someone was often a parent or other family member, who had caused them great harm, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Hopes, Dreams, and Expectations

As illogical or even as naive as it might seem, many people who were badly mistreated harbor a hope that someday the person who had harmed them would acknowledge having done so, and come forward and apologize to them. That rarely happens.

Rather than feeling relief or other positive feelings, many people are confused to discover a painful level of grief at the death of the person who had harmed them. They don't realize what is causing them to feel that way, and many even feel they've betrayed themselves for having any feelings other than "good riddance".

The death robs the possibility of repair of the relationship that had never been good.

The death ends the hope that there could be something of value with that person.

The death ends the possibility of an acknowledgment from that person of what they'd done to you.

The death does not end the negative or painful feelings about the person who harmed you.

Completion is Possible

In spite of a sense of despair that the death has robbed you of the possibility of a direct interaction with the person who harmed you, the fact is that all completion must be done indirectly.

Even if the person was still living, it is unlikely that you would be able to have an open and honest communication with them about what they'd done to you. Most typically, they either wouldn't talk about it, or would continue to deny that it happened at all.

Please watch this important webinar. It will:

Help you become aware of any grief-related myths that may be keeping you stuck.

Encourage you to take actions to complete what is left emotionally unfinished for you.

Help you to move forward in your life in spite of what happened in your past.